10 Signs You Were Raised In A Judgmental Home And It’s Still Affecting You Now
Not that we're judging you for it, but if your parents did, you probably act this way now.
Shutterstock / HBRH The signs you were raised in a judgmental home aren’t always obvious when you’re young, but having critical parents can deeply affect the way you see yourself and how you form relationships as an adult. If your parents provided you with unconditional love and support, you’re more likely to grow up with a strong sense of self-worth, as you learned to believe in yourself early on in life.
But if your parents were harshly critical of you, you may suffer from low self-esteem and have trouble trusting that other people have your best interests at heart. People who were raised in a judgmental home often feel the emotional impact of parental criticism long after they’ve moved out and started their own independent life.
Here are 10 signs you were raised in a judgmental home and it’s still affecting you now:
1. You don’t express how you feel
fizkes | Shutterstock
A sign you were raised in a judgmental home and it’s still affecting you now is that you struggle to express your emotions. Having overly-critical parents meant that being vulnerable was viewed as a weakness, and sharing how you felt wasn’t encouraged or accepted. If you did express your feelings, your parents dismissed them quickly, which taught you that your home wasn’t an emotionally safe place.
A research article published in the Journal of Social and Personal Relationships notes that families can be both a source of support and a source of stress and tension. Having a strong family relationship can provide a foundation for positive health outcomes later in life, but those positive outcomes only occur if a family is available for practical, informational, and emotional support.
Being raised in a family where emotional support wasn’t readily provided can make people emotionally avoidant as adults.
2. You’re a perfectionist
Dima Berlin | Shutterstock
Perfectionism is another sign that you were raised in a judgmental home and it’s still affecting you now. Becoming a perfectionist is common among people who grew up with hyper-critical parents. It’s possible that your parents expected every test score to be perfect and every piano recital to be flawless. If you missed the mark or made a mistake, they judged you for your failures, instead of celebrating what you accomplished.
It’s highly likely that having judgmental parents set forth a cycle that you’re still struggling to escape from, where you’re still trying to reach impossible standards in exchange for affection and expressions of love.
According to clinical psychologist Dr. Judith Tutin, perfectionists put such immense pressure on themselves, they have a hard time letting themselves feel happy and fulfilled with what they have. Dr. Tutin describes perfectionism as "relentless striving for flawlessness and excessively high performance [that] sets the high bar by which we consistently judge ourselves and find ourselves wanting.”
She notes that perfectionists also worry about how others see them, a deep-seated fear that stems from the judgment they received in childhood, concluding that celebrating your successes is as important as recognizing and accepting failure.
“Failure makes us human, and talking about failure allows us to get the support we need and increases our empathy toward others,” she explains.
3. You have trouble accepting compliments
Nicoleta Ionescu | Shutterstock
If you have difficulty accepting compliments, it could be a sign you were raised in a judgmental home and it’s still affecting you now. It’s possible that your parents played favorites and you weren’t the favored child, so you received criticism while your sibling was praised. The imbalance of feedback makes you wary of being complimented as an adult, which makes it hard for you to see your own worth.
A study in the Journal of Pediatric Healthcare explained that feedback from parents shapes how children see themselves, stating that “it is within these earliest relationships that children first begin to acquire a sense of themselves as capable, competent, and loved.”
The authors of study defined praise as “positive statements designed to reinforce desirable behaviors in children or communicate pleasure with the child.” Criticism was defined as “negative statements designed to stop or change children’s undesirable behavior or communicate displeasure with the child.”
They noted that praise is often given alongside parental responsiveness and warm, nurturing behavior, which instills in children the knowledge that they are loved. With that knowledge, they build up their sense of confidence. Yet being routinely criticized has the opposite effect, undermining their self-esteem. Because of this, someone who doesn’t recognize their talents was most likely told in childhood that they didn’t have any.
4. You’re scared to try new things
fizkes | Shutterstock
With self-confidence comes the ability to take healthy risks. If you were raised in a judgmental home, you probably weren’t encouraged to try new things, and that fear may have carried over into your adult life.
As a child, you were criticized for even the smallest mistake, which sent the implicit message that you should avoid trying new things, in case you didn’t succeed. Your parents’ judgmental attitude held you back from developing a strong sense of resilience, which is a crucial part of facing the challenges that are bound to come your way.
Being scared to try new things can affect your quality of life, along with your sense of self-efficacy. You don’t feel like you’re capable of handling hard things, because your parents didn’t give you a supportive space to try things and fail.
Fear of failure is a powerful motivator to stay firmly within your comfort zone, but if you don’t try new things, you’ll never know how high you can fly.
5. You have a harsh inner dialogue
YURII MASLAK | Shutterstock
You may have internalized the way your parents spoke to you, to the point where it became the way you speak to yourself. Instead of lifting yourself up and giving yourself positive affirmations, your inner critic pulls you down and tells you how worthless you are.
Your inner voice is a constant negative feedback loop that mirrors your parents’ judgments from childhood. While it’s not easy to break the pattern of judging yourself for everything you do or say, the first step is acknowledging that the critical voice exists, yet it’s not the full sum of who you are.
Beating yourself up for being wrong doesn’t stop you from making future mistakes, and making mistakes is part of what makes us human. Practicing self-compassion can be difficult if you weren’t shown how to be kind to yourself as a child, but treating yourself gently is a major part of the healing process.
6. You have a defensive sense of humor
Prostock-studio | Shutterstock
If you were raised in a judgmental home, it’s possible that your parents disguised their criticism with teasing behavior and mean jokes, then said they were only kidding when you got upset. You were often told that you were being “too sensitive,” when really, you were having an appropriate emotional reaction to being bullied.
As a result, you grew up to have a sarcastic and defensive sense of humor, because that’s how you learned to protect yourself from your family’s cruel judgment. You might make jokes about other people to shield yourself from potential attacks, which you became accustomed to receiving as a child. Your sense of humor could also be self-deprecating. You joke about your own insecurities before anyone else has a chance to.
Humor can be a balm in times of trouble. Laughter is an essential part of living a joyful life, yet making barbed jokes at your own expense or at the expense of others only serves to repeat the patterns you learned from being raised in a judgmental home.
7. You have an insecure attachment style
SFIO CRACHO | Shutterstock
When parents are present enough to meet their children’s practical needs and show up in an emotionally available way, they set a solid foundation for their kids to develop a secure attachment style. Parents who are unable or unwilling to offer unconditional support create an environment where their kids learn that they’re not safe on an emotional level.
If you were raised in a judgmental home, you may have carried that sense of being emotionally unsafe into adulthood and developed an insecure attachment style. Being on the receiving end of constant criticism left you feeling like nothing you do will ever be good enough, so you take your low sense of self-worth into every relationship.
Dr. Samantha Rodman Whitman explains that experiencing a secure attachment in childhood lends itself to becoming “an adult who can be confident and independent within romantic relationships but is also adept at giving and receiving love and comfort.”
Having been raised in a judgmental home and developed an insecure attachment style doesn’t mean you have to stay stuck in that place. Psychotherapist Dr. Diane Poole Heller shares that people can change their attachment style over the course of their lives.
“As you heal the painful circumstances that caused you to develop insecure attachment, you can shift toward a more fulfilling relationship style as you work on core issues and focus on corrective experiences, instead of letting your emotional reactions overcome you that may push away the people you love the most,” she explains.
8. You second-guess your decisions
Opat Suvi | Shutterstock
Second-guessing your decisions is a sign you were raised in a judgmental home and it’s still affecting you now. Because your parents insulted or punished you whenever you were wrong, they taught you that you couldn’t trust yourself. As an adult, you have a hard time making decisions, whether it’s a small choice, like what you to order at your birthday dinner, or a choice that has a bigger impact on your life, like what career path you want to pursue.
You learned that making the “wrong” choice had major negative consequences. You were made to feel inferior if you decided to do something that your parents didn’t approve of, so you relied on them to make decisions for you. You turned into a people-pleaser who’s always worried about what other people will think if you say “no” or put your own needs first.
Breaking out of self-doubt doesn’t happen overnight, but by paying attention to what you really want and what makes you feel fulfilled, you can learn to trust your intuition.
9. You don’t ask for help
fizkes | Shutterstock
Another sign you were raised in a judgmental home is that you avoid asking people for help, since you learned from a young age that it wasn’t okay to ask for outside support. Your parents were dismissive, and told you that you were old enough to figure it out yourself. They made you feel like it was a weakness, when really, asking for help is a sign of strength.
Asking for help when you’ve been conditioned not to can be scary, especially since the people you were supposed to trust most — your parents — never gave you the help you needed. While reaching out to people is a vulnerable act, it’s also the only way we can build our sense of connection to other people and create long-lasting, intimate relationships.
10. You isolate yourself
SeventyFour | Shutterstock
You’ve grown so scared of being judged that you preemptively remove yourself from any environment where you might get criticized just for being you. Withdrawing from relationships might seem like the right tactic to protect yourself from harm, but really, it only serves to make you feel even more lonely and disconnected.
Jerry Duberstein and Mary Ellen Goggin, who offer marriage and couples counseling and coaching, describe the difference between constructive feedback and criticism, noting that, “When criticism isn't healthy or constructive, and it comes from a place of contempt or resentment, it can be anything from an exaggerated critique of something that is minor in reality to a totally baseless and irrational putdown.”
When people truly care for you, they don’t pass judgment or make you feel like you’re undeserving of love. Staying open-hearted in the face of a childhood spent in a judgmental home might not be easy, but it’s totally worth it — and so are you.
Alexandra Blogier is a writer on YourTango's news and entertainment team. She covers social issues, pop culture analysis and all things to do with the entertainment industry.